The Two-Week Orientation Center Program

Abstract

Orientation programs for foreign students vary in duration and coverage from one-day programs on the cam pus of the university attended, with emphasis on local institu tional practices, to six-week programs for students destined for many different universities and with major emphasis on learn ing English. In the summer of 1960 for the first time, two universities—Minnesota and Indiana—were asked to experi ment with two-week orientation sessions for groups of advanced graduate students carefully selected for English language pro ficiency and academic competence. Major emphasis was placed on orientation to the American university system and to practices in the specific fields of study of the participants. The results would seem to indicate that this type of short- term orientation, while fast moving and, thus, wearing on the participants and the instructors alike, produced among the overseas students some notable insights into graduate educa tion in America.